At present, constructional geomaterials make the largest (by volume) group of extracted mineral raw materials. Despite their low unit price, they significantly contribute to the economy in many senses. Ongoing worldwide development of infrastructure, rapid urbanisation and the need for maintenance of the existing structures exert enormous pressure on the environment due to the extraction of new materials from natural resources, along with their processing and transportation.
The resources, processing, testing, and proper use of construction geomaterials thus deserve attention from the scientific community due to their long-term use, importance for the society, and sensitivity to the environment. As our knowledge of many aspects of these materials is still rather limited, the session aims to focus on the following topics:
• characterisation of traditional raw materials and their products, such as natural and dimension stone, aggregates (crushed stone, sands and gravels), inorganic binders (lime, natural cements and hydraulic limes), bricks, clay, earth and adobe;
• use of geomaterials in concrete and service life of such materials;
• recovery of historic knowledge of constructional geomaterials processing and use;
• assessment of durability;
• comparison of natural and anthropogenic decay of constructional geomaterials, the role of human impact on their service life;
• study of interactions and material compatibility between traditional construction materials and modern restoration products;
• conservation of geomaterials in heritage structures;
• availability of traditional materials in modern society, including comparative studies between small-scale production of materials (e.g. natural cement) and large-scale industrial processing;
• use of local materials as a part of cultural and/or industrial and technical heritage;
• technological properties and their testing;
• on site and laboratory standardized (ASTM, EN, etc.) and non-standardized testing techniques and their limitations for constructional geomaterials’ characterization;
• geological evaluation of geomaterials’ deposits;
• compositional and genetic aspects influencing extraction, processing, and utilization of constructional geomaterials;
• use of quarry waste, utilization of stone extraction and processing by-products;
• environmental issues.

Natural stones are integral part of the architectonic heritage built over the centuries and thus reflect close cultural affiliation with society. Our session deals with Heritage Stones defined explicitly by the IUGS Sub Commission on Heritage Stones (HSS). We promote recognition of natural stones that have achieved an important and significant use in human culture. The session is open to discuss the use of heritage stones in different civilizations over the period of time, their impact on human culture, geoheritage, geoarchaeology and architectonic relevance. The session is also open to discuss current scenario on status of the architectonic heritage in terms of their deterioration and steps to reinforce restoration of the same, in addition to aspects such as historical quarries, quarry landscape and trade of these heritage stones etc.
Global Heritage Stones constitute a resource of great social and economic relevance that attracts cultural tourism, and form an important link to understand the geology and history of a region. Global Heritage Stone recognition will promote public and policy-maker interest in stonebuilt heritage, encourage the use of natural stones and ensure the availability of stones required for maintenance and restoration of built heritage. It will also assist in forming a broader understanding of how the usage of the most traditional building material has evolved over centuries to the present-day application. As factory produced building materials took over in the last two centuries or so, architects seem to be re-evaluating their choices and there is a reawakened interest in the usage of stone as a contemporary building material.
This session is promoted by the Heritage Stones Subcommission (HSS), an IUGS subcommission within the International Commission on Geoheritage (ICG). The proposed session encourages contributions related to above sub themes from all over the world.
Selected contributions from our previous EGU sessions are published in high impact factor journals, such as: Geological Society of London Special Publications (SP407: Global Heritage Stone: Towards International Recognition of Building and Ornamental Stones), Episodes Special Issue on Heritage Stones (volume 38-2, June 2015), Geoscience Canada (volume 43(1), March 2016), Geoheritage (2018), Episodes (in process of publication by 2020). Selected contributions of EGU 2020 will be considered for publication in a special issue of a well rated journal.

Mineral resources are used in larger quantities than ever before in history, and are the basis of our modern society. The safe and sustainable supply of mineral resources is fostering a demand for innovative actions to cover the foreseeable future industry and human demands. Exploration is the first step in the mineral resources cycle. On one hand, most of the giant deposits at shallow depths have been already explored and mined out and the industry is moving towards deeper and more complex mineral systems, which brings significant exploration challenges. On the other hand, the exploration sector needs time-saving, cost-effective, and, particularly in Europe, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable techniques to ensure sustainable access to mineral resources.
This session aims to bring together geoscientists from various (e.g. remote sensing, geochemistry, geology, geophysics, modelling, mineralogy, structural geology) involved in mineral exploration for the 21st Century. Abstract submissions for this session can include, but are not limited to, the following topics: new methods of exploration; imaging; conceptual modelling and quantification of deposits and mineral systems; cost reduction in exploration; non-invasive exploration; integration of multidisciplinary methodologies and datasets; scale-up and replicability; industry-academia synergies and FAIR data repositories.

Public information:
Tentative schedule

14:00 EGU2020-2078ECS Mahmoud Mekkawi
14:06 EGU2020-12172ECS Jelena Markov
14:12 EGU2020-13586 Luís Lopes
14:18 EGU2020-20242ECS Helen Twigg
14:24 EGU2020-3598ECS Emma Soldevila
14:30 EGU2020-10911ECS Alba Gil
14:36 EGU2020-22146ECS Yesenia Martínez
14:42 EGU2020-11129 Alireza Malehmir
14:48 5-minutes break
14:54 EGU2020-19308 Sebastian Hölz
15:00 EGU2020-6682ECS Ulrich Kelka
15:06 EGU2020-10719 Louis Andreani
15:12 EGU2020-20765ECS Robert Jackisch
15:18 EGU2020-13563ECS Sam Thiele
15:24 EGU2020-13526ECS Cecilia Contreras
15:30 EGU2020-13121ECS Giorgia Stasi

Assessing and mitigating the environmental impacts of solid waste is critical to develop sustainable waste management strategies. Solid waste deposits from the extractive industry, i.e. extractive waste (EW), and municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills can be an environmental threat through groundwater or surface water contamination in addition to the human health risks they might pose. Furthermore, MSW landfills account for 5% of the anthropogenic methane production worldwide.
In line with Europe’s Circular Economy Action Plan, several strategies emerged aiming for sustainability regarding the use of natural resources, a responsible consumption/production, dynamic landfill management (DLM) and, mainly for EW, the recovery/reuse of waste produced during exploitation and processing activities. These include the reduction of emissions through control of microbial activity, sustainable mining and recovery of raw materials and energy, the rehabilitation of the occupied land among others. Yet, the controlling mechanisms of microbial activity and other degrading processes in waste are largely unknown, and traditional methods based on the analysis of samples generally lack the required resolution for an adequate characterization of biogeochemical processes. Hence, there is a big demand of innovative techniques for the characterization and monitoring of EW and MSW disposal sites. In particular, reliable information about the composition and geometry of waste depositions, as well as about their biogeochemical status is needed. Geophysical methods are well suited to fulfill these requirements as they can provide real-time information about subsurface physical properties in a non-invasive way and with high resolution in space and time.
The main topics to be discussed in this session deal with the use of innovative methods, including, but not limited to, geophysical approaches for:
- Characterization and monitoring of MSW and of EW from quarries and mines.
- Case studies for the detection and assessment of environmental pollution associated to the disposal of solid waste.
- Evaluation of the risks associated with the management of waste and integrated approaches towards sustainable mining,
- Innovative technologies to exploit EW facilities and to improve the systematic recovery of waste flows. Case studies related to the recovery of EW from quarrying and mining activities, including valorization as construction materials.

Public information:
Please, consider to attend the session ERE1.4: The Environment and Smart Circular Economy and Cities: A New Geo management Approach. During the chat time it will be possible to interact with the Coordinator of the COST Action CA17133 Circular City Implementing nature based solutions for creating a resourceful circular city.

The conveneers are arranging one or more special issue on scientific journals. you'll be alerted about the opening of the submission phase.

Mineral deposits represent principal sources of metallic and non-metallic raw materials for our society. The implementation of new climate policies and the rise of green energy production and use will trigger an unprecedented demand increase for such resources. Formation of economic commodities requires component sequestration from source region, transport and focusing to structural or chemical barriers. These enrichment processes typically involve magmatic, hydrothermal, weathering or metamorphic events, which operate in diverse geodynamic settings and over various time scales. The scope of this session is to collect insights from diverse areas of mineral exploration, field, analytical or experimental studies of mineral deposits as well as resource characterization and extraction. We invite contributions from fields of economic geology, mineralogy and geochemistry in order to advance our understanding of ore-forming systems.